Free Falling
by lucocat
Summary: Skye refuses to become a liability to Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D.


Hello all! Just a little something I was working on this evening - I own all typos and mistakes!

I know the situation towards the end is very improbable, even physically impossible, but it's what I came up with...so please enjoy! I promise one day I will write a happy fic!

* * *

When Skye had realised who Ward was and what he had done, she went into planning mode. Huddled on the bathroom floor in Providence Skye mentally ranked her two biggest priorities, after taking a moment to mentally send up a quick prayer for the life of Eric Koenig, a sneaky but somewhat loveable individual Skye felt had been her privilege to get to know, however briefly.

First: let the remaining team members know everything that had happened whilst they were in Portland

Second: Find out the real reason Ward had returned; he and Garrett had obviously got the upper-hand over the S.H.I.E.L.D. team they had travelled with to The Fridge, which meant more casualties of war. Ward had no reason to return, he had made his escape but obviously HYDRA needed something or he would have been long gone.

Skye did have more thoughts tumbling through her head vying for attention, but decided to limit the drain on her already overtaxed mind as she was short on time and options. Ward would realise she was gone within minutes and would likely come looking for her.

After frantically searching through the cupboards in the bathroom, looking for anything she could incapacitate Ward with Skye came up with nothing. Desperately turning her head round searching for anything, her eyes settled on the tablet she had carried with her to track down Koenig. Glimpsing out of her peripheral vision the scene on the bathroom screen changing, Skye came up with a plan. Hastily grabbing the tablet she linked into Providence's operating system. She may not be a mercenary, but she knew how to exploit any advantage presented to her and computer science was her advantage.

Skye knew that she needed to alert the others to what had happened, she believed at that moment she was next on Ward's list after Koenig. With her dead Ward could pick off the other members of the team, them none the wiser until their final moments that they had been so utterly betrayed as she had. Skye typed a series of commands which meant that as soon as jet landed in the hanger bay, the screens would change pictures to text "Ward is HYDRA; Koenig dead; lanyards have tracking chips; RUN". Skye couldn't think of anything more succinct to type. She knew she would be dead by the time the team returned and felt cheated that she wouldn't get a chance for a proper goodbye to people that had become a family to her. Skye had never felt bad as a child when she had to leave various foster homes, or even when she had run away from the orphanage where she had been raised; yet not seeing the rest of the team one last time broke her heart every bit as much as Ward being a HYDRA sleeper.

Skye realised she needed to stall Ward as long as possible in order to complete her second objective, and ran to the storage cupboard to replace the dropped penny. If he went back to the room and discovered the penny had been moved, Ward would realise that she knew the truth which would compromise her plans to find out what he wanted from the team.

Tracking Ward's movements on the tablet, Skye had just enough time to replace the coin and run into the room across the hall. Timing her entrance to coincide with Ward checking the storage cupboard, Skye appeared before him.

X-X-X-X-X

When Skye finally connected all the dots and realised why Ward had returned, that was when she made her final game-changing decision. She knew enough about Garrett to know that he wouldn't stop until he had the information contained on the hard drive; Skye wasn't a trained black ops specialist and knew realistically that there was only so much pain she could withstand before she gave HYDRA whatever they wanted. Despite various bumps and broken bones sustained over the years, Skye knew that she could potentially become Coulson's, and what remained of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, greatest liability. Whilst she and S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't had the greatest of starts, they had protected her all of her life and now was her opportunity to repay the debt.

Sitting in the co-pilots seat and taking the time to appreciate the rising sun with Ward, Skye wondered aloud, _"What would it take to convince you to fly off into the sunset with me?"_

Ward having been concentrating on the various instrument panels before him, turned his head to face Skye, _"Hmmm?"_

Skye turned her head to face Ward, smiling _"We have a fully fuelled plane, we can go anywhere in the world, be anybody we want to be. You can be Tom, I'll be Giselle."_

Mirroring her smile, Ward asked _"Where would we go?"_

"_Somewhere far away, we could live in a nice little shack on the edge of a beach with crystal clear water and warm, white sand; nobody else around for miles."_

"_What would we do with our time?"_ Ward's smile deepened at the dreamy, far away look encompassing Skye's face.

"_Swim, sunbathe, anything we wanted, when we wanted. You could read and I could surf, I always wanted to try surfing it looks like fun." _Skye could almost picture the scene she was painting, could almost smell the ocean and feel the water lapping at her ankles.

"_Maybe when this is all over I'll take you surfing, I know of a few private beaches where we wouldn't be interrupted" _

"_Yeah, I'd like that; we could surf during the day and sleep out under the stars at night; light a bonfire, toast marshmallows and tell ghost stories."_

"_You've given this some thought then?"_ Ward wondered what else Skye would plan for them if they had ever been given a chance to be a normal couple.

"_No, not really; with everything that has happened recently I guess I have just been thinking about living a different life" _Skye had never dreamed of a white picket fence and 2.4 kids, but she had hoped to reach a point in her existence where she would be comfortable enough to share her life with another person. Miles would never have been that person, but she did hope that Ward would have been a potential contender.

"_Skye, it'll all get better; the good guys will win and this will all seem like a distant memory when we are shacked up by the beach watching the dolphins swim in the distance and waiting for night to fall so we can cuddle under a blanket."_ Ward waggled his eyebrows, _"I promise to show you all the constellations."_

Ward really wanted to redirect the plane, but knew the spectre of John Garrett hung over them and that pull was greater than the dream of a life both knew they could never have. _"Now Agent Skye, in order to get to the beach, we need to defeat the enemy; where do we need to go to decrypt the hard drive."_

Skye looked out over the new day, blinking away the image of a life she will never live before telling Ward to fly to a random city she remembered she had once driven through.

X-X-X-X-X

"_Where are you going?"_ Ward queried when Skye stood up, moving out of the cockpit.

"_Toilet; that drink we shared is catching up with me, I'll be straight back." _ Skye was lying through her teeth, but Ward hadn't seemed to notice, _"Keep my seat warm."_

Skye walked out of the cockpit, closing the door securely before running as fast as she could through the body of The Bus and down to the cargo bay. Grabbing all parachutes she could find from their hangers on the walls, Skye threw them in a disorderly pile at one of the emergency exit doors; she knew she didn't have long before Ward would again come looking for her. Taking one final look around, surveying what had been her home for the past lot of months, tears began to fall. Taking a fortifying breath, Skye prepared herself for what she was about to do; bracing herself with her back to the wall, Skye reached over and grasped the handle of the door, twisting it firmly. Taking a few beats to steady herself, Skye fell to her knees and began throwing and pushing all the parachutes she had gathered out of the open door.

In the cockpit, alarms had begun blaring and flashing indicating a problem within the aircraft; fighting to regain control Ward knew he had been compromised, Skye knew he had betrayed her. Flipping autopilot on, Ward raced to the disturbance intent on rectifying the situation. He arrived at the cargo hold as Skye threw the last remaining parachute out of The Bus and into the ocean below them, _"Skye, what are you doing? Close that door before you get sucked out and get killed."_ Ward had to shout to be heard, racing towards Skye reaching out to grab her any way he could

Startled, Skye turned her head and saw Ward charging towards her; she clambered onto her feet and braced herself against the wall, _"That's kind of the point here; don't come any closer."_

Freezing within centimetres of her, Ward wanted to reach out and secure Skye in the plane but he didn't want to risk startling her, too much depended on the information she could unlock. _"Skye whatever you think you know, you don't"_

"_I know you killed Agent Koenig, likely Agent Hand and who knows how many other friends and allies; I know you're working for HYDRA and I know you betrayed all of us; betrayed me."_ Skye had contemplated not following through with her plan, but try as she might to come up with another solution, she couldn't.

"_It's not that simple, please come away from the door and let me explain...Skye, please come away from the door, it doesn't have to end like this." _

Shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind whipping around them, _"No, I have to do this; you have to know I do. You've chosen your side and I've chosen mine; I believe in S.H.I.E.L.D. and everything that they stand for, I won't help HYDRA. At least I get to chose how I die, not by Garrett's hand but by my own."_

"_Skye please, don't do this"_ Strange as it was, Ward knew Skye had no other option and he was jealous, jealous that she had her way out of this mess he had helped to create.

"_I have to, there's no other way; without me, Garrett won't be able to decrypt the hard drive giving good men like Coulson a fair chance at bringing down HYDRA. I'm sorry Grant, but I have to do this; despite everything it's been an honour and a privilege to know you, to work with you."_ Edging ever closer to the open door, openly crying and her voice catching in her throat, _"I wish we could have flown away together, lived on that beach, we would have been great."_

Tears freely flowing down his face, Ward looked around the cargo hold for a parachute before coming to the stark realisation that Skye had thrown them all overboard thereby ensuring that he had no means to save her.

"_Just make sure you chose the right side in this war; goodbye Grant."_ Stepping towards the open door, Skye felt Ward grab out towards her, their fingers touching for one final time before she allowed her body to be carried out of the plane. Skye began her rapid crashing descent to the ocean below, savouring the freedom she had never before felt, knowing that she had done her part in the fight for Grant Ward's soul.


End file.
